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Friday December 5, 2008 5:20 pm

Not so Secret Invasion

(Spoiler alert… wait… how can you spoil something that everyone already knows?)

So, Secret Invasion is over. Supposedly.The series is over and Dark Reign begins. But all this assumes that the comic companies believe that all their customers only read comics. See, comic stores are not like coffee shops. We are slaves to UPS and there is not much sense opening up hours before the Diamond shipment arrives. So I wake up in the morning and begin to read a newspaper, such as the New York Times. And lo and behold, on the second page of the Arts and Leisure section is an article on Secret Invasion. (Sarcasm alert) Comic delivery day is the only really day I have lots of work to do and any time-saver is appreciated.

Norm Osborn is the hero. Tony Stark is the goat. Janet is comic dead. Shield is kaput. The Avengers are leaderless. Even the Skrulls are up the creek. IN THE NEW YORK TIMES????

And on to the story. I may be old-fashioned, but in a long story arc I like some finality. Secret Invasion issue 8 seemed just like a lead in for Dark Reign. So is Dark Reign 1 really Secret Invasion 9? The buildings are burning, there are massive holes in the ground and people are mourning their dead friends. Well, the invasion is defeated and we can take a breath. Or can we?

I know Marvel wants to sell lots of books and keep the Secret Invasion readers for the next storyline. That’s them and I’m me. So now we have the Ill-Illuminati of bad guys running the show. If Emma really loves the ultimate good guy, Scott, you know she is going to betray them in the end. Fine… I’ll buy it anyway.

And, of course, the big question was where all the substituted guys were. Naturally, they were all in one big ship and that’s the one that didn’t get blown up. See, they were part of this genetic experiment so we couldn’t kill them and keep a couple of bottles of Electra, Jarvis, Sue Richards, Mockingbird, and the rest just in case. No, we kept them in one ship, which we wouldn’t leave back at the home planet or anywhere else safe, but right up at the front lines. Naturally, we have War of the Kings coming up so, at least, the Inhumans can look for the missing Black Bolt. Still, that nasty old Tony Stark got his comeupence so it can’t be all bad.